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Monday, December 19, 2011

Monkey racing

I scooted out of work a bit early to squeeze in my 6x800m workout at the Y (treadmill), rushing the whole way up the hill, through the locker room, and onto a machine.

"Quick Start" and I was off on my warm up, trying to keep my heart rate below 160 bpm. It was painfully slow (12:00 miles?) because I was pretty amped up from rushing to get there. This is my new deal as of yesterday. An ironwoman co-worker has been telling me to slow it down, make the body more efficient by running longer at a lower heart rate.

This is exactly the OPPOSITE of what I normally do. I'm usually all out pretty much all the time, even on long runs, unless someone else is setting the pace.

Then this weekend Caratruck Girl posted about heart rate zone training. It pushed me over the edge. Since I don't have enough time to do a full FIRST/Furman program, I figure I may as well try something different. Zone training.

Meanwhile, a T.V. monitor is on in front of me but I'm not paying attention because I'm looking at my HR and thinking about my upcoming 800m intervals and wondering what pace I'll need to run to get my heart up around 185-190 bpm.

I think Monday night football was on?

Then suddenly the scene changed to horse racing.

Wait, what?

That horse is really hairy.

And the tail is thick and shaped like an arc.

But the jockey...is hairy too?

Damn, things are fuzzy when I don't have my glasses on.

Closer.

What the heck?

I realized it wasn't horse racing at all, but something along these lines:

The clip I saw was more convincing than this, I promise. But really, have you ever seen this? I guess it's "Banana Derby."

After recovering from the shock of seeing a little monkey jockey zoom around a track on the back of a dog, I cranked it up for my first 800m interval. At the same exact moment that my first interval started, ENTER SANDMAN started on my shuffle.

A runner trying to strike a balance between work, family, friends, and me-time. I'm not a trainer or coach or anything like that. I'm just an average gal trying to enjoy life, one day at a time, and keep on running and staying healthy.
Send me a message at: averagewomanrunner@gmail.com